Your favorite Sci-fi WMD?

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2007-09-15 06:28am

It's all in the presentation

We've got DEATH STAR! DEATH STAR! DEATH STAR! DEATH STAR!

Lord of the Abyss · Post by **Lord of the Abyss** » 2007-09-15 06:41am

I admit to a fondness for the Star Trek Doomsday Machine. Early childhood impressions and all that.

I also like the Stellar Converter from MOO 2; slicing a planet in half just like that is undeniably cool.

Pulp Hero wrote:"Rotating" a planet out of the universe, it appeared in some Heinlein books, I believe.

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. It was also mentioned in Eric Flint & David Drakes Belisarius series.

Master_Baerne wrote:Some Random Asteroid(TM). All of the damage, none of the cost!

I have to repeat this quote I got from somewhere ( quite possibly here ) :

Rocks are NOT ‘free’, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel. Then the Tech Priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthiness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrapers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the Tech Priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the Emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still many weeks (or months) away. After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact the planet (assuming that the Emperor’s ship
does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:

Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 2.5 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI

Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasted with the following:

5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI

Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same result with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His Office of Imperial Outlays – hereby orders
you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance.
Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administratum Building CXXI,
Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2007-09-15 07:03am

My favourite weapon of mass destruction is the nutcracker. What do you do when faced with a heavily shielded planet? Crush it between two other planets of course.

Ezekyle Abaddon · Post by **Ezekyle Abaddon** » 2007-09-15 07:21am

A conventional orbital bombardment from the 40K Imperial navy,enough force to crack a planets crust and it still looks good on film.

OmegaGuy · Post by **OmegaGuy** » 2007-09-15 08:37am

The Photino Birds, nothing says overkill like tossing an entire galaxy at your enemy.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2007-09-15 10:03am

My favorite is the Death Star. I'm not alone in thinking it's the most intimidating weapons system in all of the sci-fi I've seen.

Warsie wrote:EDIT 3: Also; I forgot. Why don't you make up your sci-fi WMDs too?

No, my goal in intergalactic warfare is the CONQUEST of my enemies, to make them submit to my authority-- NOT pointless destruction. If I need to take out a fortress, having a fleet of kilometer-long warships perform orbital bombardment will do just fine.

LaserRifleofDoom · Post by **LaserRifleofDoom** » 2007-09-15 10:32am

Ice Nine from Cat's Cradle. Though a distant second is the Death Star.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2007-09-15 10:33am

Master_Baerne wrote:Some Random Asteroid(TM). All of the damage, none of the cost!

Once again I am obligated to post this.

White Dwarf wrote:Rocks are NOT “free”, citizen.

Firstly, you must manoeuvre the Emperor’s naval vessel within reach of the asteroid belt, almost assuredly sustaining damage to the Emperor’s ship’s paint from micrometeoroids, while expending the Emperor’s fuel.

Then the tech priests must inspect the rock in question to ascertain its worthyness to do the Emperor’s bidding. Should it pass muster, the Emperor’s Servitors must use the Emperor’s auto-scrappers and melta-cutters to prepare the potential ordinance for movement. Finally, the tech priests finished, the Emperor’s officers may begin manoeuvring the Emperor’s warship to abut the asteroid at the prepared face (expending yet more of the Emperor’s fuel), and then begin boosting the stone towards the offensive planet.

After a few days of expending a prodigious amount of the Emperor’s fuel to accelerate the asteroid into an orbit more fitting to the emperor’s desires, the Emperor’s ship may then return to the planet via superluminous warp travel and await the arrival of the stone, still weeks (or months) away.

After twiddling away the Emperor’s time and eating the Emperor’s food in the wasteful pursuit of making sure that the Emperor’s enemies do not launch a deflection mission, they may finally watch the ordinance impact on the planet (assuming the Emperor’s warship does not need to attempt any last-minute course correction upon the rock, using yet more of the Emperor’s fuel).

Given a typical (class Bravo-CVII) system, we have the following:
Two months, O&M, Titan class warship: 4.2 Million Imperials.
Two months, rations, crew of same: 0.2 MI
Two months, Tech Priest pastor: 1.7 MI
Two months, Servitor parish: 0.3 MI
Paint, Titan class warship: 0.9 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.9 MI
Total: 9.8 MI

Contrasting with the following:
5 warheads, magna-melta: 2.5 MI
One day, O&M, Titan class warship: 0.3 MI
One day, rations, crew of same: 0.0 MI
Dihydrogen peroxide fuel: 0.1 MI
Total: 2.9 MI

Given the same amount with under one third of the cost, the Emperor will have saved a massive amount of His most sacred money and almost a full month of time, during which His warship may be bombarding an entirely different planet.

The Emperor, through this – His office of Imperial outlays – hereby orders you to attend one (1) week of therapeutic accountancy training/penance. Please report to Areicon IV, Imperial City, Administatum Building CXXI, Room 1456, where you are to sit in the BLUE chair.

For the Emperor,
Bursarius Tenathis,
Purser Level XI,
Imperial Office of Outlays.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2007-09-15 10:34am

Ghetto edit: Fuck, I missed Abyss's post. Nevermind me.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2007-09-15 11:29am

The 'other' stellar converter from the movie i watched ages ago and cant quite remember the name of. Basically its a specialist gun mounted on the front of the big bad villain warship that fires a beam that turns the planet into effectively a mini star for an uncertain amount of time. from an oldish sci fi movie.

Vanas · Post by **Vanas** » 2007-09-15 11:35am

A TARDIS.

Move the planet's moon, crash it into the sun or erase it from history.

You're limited only by your imagination.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-09-15 11:57am

Galaxy Gun and Hyperspace Missiles = Full of Win. Intra Galactic Hyperspace Missiles anyone?

Sun Crusher as well.

kinnison · Post by **kinnison** » 2007-09-15 01:53pm

I've got three candidates. One is the Monolith, the big version, from 2010. Another is the Alchemist. The third is the neutronium/antineutronium planetcracker from Greg Bear; can't remember the name of the book.

Also, to continue the Lensman sub-thread, how about planetary-mass negaspheres?

darthbob88 · Post by **darthbob88** » 2007-09-15 03:04pm

kinnison wrote:The third is the neutronium/antineutronium planetcracker from Greg Bear; can't remember the name of the book.

The Forge of God. Yeah, that's a great way of destroying a planet.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2007-09-15 03:41pm

Not sure if it counts as a WMD, but the "Statue of Liberty Canon" that was used by Neo-America in G-Gundam still makes me laugh whenever I think about it.

For more serious superweapons, though, I'd go with the Death Star. It's a classic, plain and simple.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-09-15 03:59pm

The Inhibitor Singer device. Why waste time and energy throwing rocks, when you can make a giant gravitational lens for throwing a stream of stellar core matter into planets. Flamethrowers get more fun when you're slagging planetary crusts. Bonus: Use enough core material and the star prematurely dies to boot.

Post by **Kuja** » 2007-09-15 04:13pm

The Chaos Planet Killer. Nothing quite screams "I'm gonna fuck you up" like every psychic on the planet going nuts, clawing their eyes out, and having strokes as soon as the ship even enters the system.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2007-09-15 04:32pm

LaserRifleofDoom wrote:Ice Nine from Cat's Cradle. Though a distant second is the Death Star.

Man, Ice Nine's a bit too much of a bummer, I would say. Made a great ending for the book, but pretty depressing.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-09-15 04:39pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote: Man, Ice Nine's a bit too much of a bummer, I would say. Made a great ending for the book, but pretty depressing.

Always reminded of it when seeing that Coors commercial with the beer freezing everything from leaking fire hydrants to the bar pool table and so on. Yay, ice cold beer! Boo, our biochemistry is now fucked and we die!

Funnily enough, only reason I read the book was because it was mentioned in The Recruit. Anything Pacino mentions must be good.

Teleros · Post by **Teleros** » 2007-09-15 06:13pm

Adrian Laguna wrote:My favourite weapon of mass destruction is the nutcracker. What do you do when faced with a heavily shielded planet? Crush it between two other planets of course.

Turning it into a miniature star in the process I might add

. Gotta admit, Doc Smith did do some nice WMDs

.

Lord of the Abyss wrote:I also like the Stellar Converter from MOO 2; slicing a planet in half just like that is undeniably cool.

Used to do it just for the cinematic

.

Master_Baerne · Post by **Master_Baerne** » 2007-09-15 07:28pm

CaptHawkeye wrote:! Asteroids can't do that, Baerne. Sorry.

Somehow, the prospect of dying over a period of weeks due to starvation, freezing, and suffocation is scarier than instant death-by-laser cannon. Makes a better threat, if you stop to consider it.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-09-15 07:33pm

Master_Baerne wrote:
Somehow, the prospect of dying over a period of weeks due to starvation, freezing, and suffocation is scarier than instant death-by-laser cannon. Makes a better threat, if you stop to consider it.

For that, the Imps could use the Orbital Nightcloak for such a devious tactic.

Master_Baerne · Post by **Master_Baerne** » 2007-09-15 07:38pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
Master_Baerne wrote:
Somehow, the prospect of dying over a period of weeks due to starvation, freezing, and suffocation is scarier than instant death-by-laser cannon. Makes a better threat, if you stop to consider it.
For that, the Imps could use the Orbital Nightcloak for such a devious tactic.

Quite possibly the most wasteful and destroyable superweapon even conceived. All you have to do is destroy a few satellites, but an asteroid...that's harder to get rid of. Notice I said harder. I don't believe for a second that it's impossible.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-09-15 07:46pm

It'd need to be a fast moving large 'roid, or many smaller ones going even faster given it is assumed the target planet has space faring culture who also have weaponry that could be used to take out such naturally occurring hazards.

They are plentiful and fairly cheap ways of totalling a planet if you don't want to waste missiles taking out urban settlements. A nuclear winter from a large enough rock would achieve what the Nightcloak does, but without the "off" button. The Imperial superweapon was meant to strike fear and garner support through intimidation, like the Death Star, rather than be a practical use of resources (which weren't in short supply anyway).

Master_Baerne · Post by **Master_Baerne** » 2007-09-15 07:53pm

That's true. I'm just not up to thinking in terms of the resources of the Galactic Empire. Too much to wrap my head around...